


We’re ‘Ohana

by Sealie



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 04:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3235775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealie/pseuds/Sealie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda to 5.07</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Advisory: potty mouth.  
> Disclaimer: writing for fun not for profit.  
> Comments: h/c, indulgent naval gazing, British English spelling.  
> Spoilers: coda to 5.07.  
> Betas: Springwoof, thank you kindly. You're brilliant.

Steve was caged stillness. Danny could see the thoughts scrolling under his skin but he didn’t know if they were thoughts fuelled by the cocktail of drugs coursing through his system, or if they were sober thoughts. 

Probably a combination of the two. 

They were sober thoughts, in all senses of the words. 

Steve wouldn’t lie back on the bed, no matter what Danny and the doctor said. Clearly, he was traumatised both in body and mind, but his defences were up, and they weren’t coming down. The paramedics transporting them to the hospital hadn’t even been able to get him to tolerate a blanket around his bare shoulders. 

He would not allow anyone to touch him except Danny. And maybe Chin. But Chin was back at the scene trying to figure out exactly what had happened so that they could all better help Steve. 

The cadre of medical staff who had swooped down upon entry into the Tripler ER had been dismissed. Too many people, trying to do too many things at once, Steve couldn’t track them all, and Danny had only just managed to keep him on the wheeled gurney. Sedation and restraints had been mentioned -- Danny had disagreed volubly. Reluctantly, and only because of the fact that Steve was clearly fighting an unknown cocktail of drugs, the medics had decided a softly-softly approach was required -- for the time being. The curtained cubicle and the presence of one doctor were barely tolerable. 

“Buddy.” Danny held a plastic bottle of water directly in Steve’s line of sight. “If you’re not going to let the doc give you an IV, I want you to drink some water. Okay?” 

“Danny?” Steve asked, confused and disoriented all over again. He coughed, low and raspy. 

“Oh, Babe.” Danny cracked the seal, and carefully curled Steve’s bruised and bloodied fingers around the crinkling bottle. He raised both their hands, guiding the bottle to Steve’s cracked lips. “Drink, Babe.” 

Gaze firmly fixed on Danny, Steve obediently put the tip of the bottle to his mouth and drank. 

“Slowly. Slowly,” Danny cajoled, controlling the angle. 

“Detective,” the doctor said softly, holding up a set of fine black cables, “I have to get the leads on him. We have to monitor his heart function.”

Danny glanced sideways at the doctor. He was a semi-familiar face from other visits, black haired, lean, local -- judging by his complexion. He was a good man, and a good doctor. 

“Doc, don’t take this the wrong way, but can we get a woman doc, or another guy,” Danny said, “because you kinda resemble the guy that tor—responsible. I don’t think that that’s helping.”

Doctor Pei nodded sharply. He didn’t waste words, simply turning on his heel and exiting the tiny cubicle. 

Steve tracked his passage with all his cross-eyed, exhausted focus. 

“You’re okay, Steve.” Danny shifted closer, trying to see if Steve was tracking again. “Come on, drink. Drink for me.” 

“Danny?” Steve asked around the bottle. It was a request for confirmation. 

“Yep, I’m here. Not going anywhere.” 

“Danny.” Steve pushed the bottle away. 

Steve scanned the room again, looking for someone else, and Danny knew who he was searching for. 

“Steve,” Danny said tone low. 

Steve’s roving search centred on Danny. 

“Steve, you’ve got to let the docs help you. Okay?” 

Steve scanned the tiny cubicle yet again, freezing as the curtain twitched. 

“Hello?” the greeting preceded the entry of a new, unfamiliar face. The guy was African-American with tightly curled red-dark brown hair, sporting a stubbly five o’clock beard, and heavy-rimmed, thick glasses. 

“Hey, doc,” Danny said. “It’s a doctor, Steve. Okay?” 

The doctor slowly entered under Steve’s scrutiny. 

“Hello, Detective Williams. Commander McGarrett.” Evidently, he had been briefed. He stopped at the end of Steve’s gurney. “Commander McGarrett?”

Steve’s agate-hard stare speared him. 

“I’m Dr. Rob Sullivan. I’m here to help you. Do you understand me?” 

He could have been talking to a robot. 

“Steve.” Danny curled a hand over the back of Steve’s neck. 

“Danny?” A flimsy smile crossed Steve’s dirty face. 

“Yes.” Danny smiled back at him, pleased to see a gleam of recognition back in his eyes. “Let the doc help you. Okay?” 

“Commander McGarrett.” Sullivan made his way slowly along the length of the gurney, into his patient’s orbit. He picked up the cables that Dr. Pei had abandoned beside the ECG. “You’ve been drugged with an unknown combination of substances. It’s very important that we check you out. Can I put these leads on you?” 

As Sullivan reached out, Steve snaked out a hand, snatching the doctor’s hand out of midair and twisting his wrist sharply backwards. 

“Jesus fuck! No, Steve.” 

Sullivan folded over at the waist, as his arm was rotated in its socket. 

“Steve! Let go.” Danny sprawled over the gurney grabbing at Steve’s wrist, digging his fingers into the corded tendons. “You’re okay. I promise you. You’re okay! Steven! Please!”

Steve released the doctor instantly. Danny folded Steve’s hand against his chest. Knees on the gurney, he slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders, holding him steady. 

“Okay, let’s try that another way.” Breathing hard, the doctor shook out his wrist with a wince. “Lesson learnt. Detective?” 

“Yep?” 

“I’m going to give you some adhesive pads. I need you to put them on Commander McGarrett. Is that okay?” 

Danny absorbed that, cognizant that Steve was relaxing into his side, as Danny perched beside him. 

“I can do that. Steve?” 

“What?” 

“I’m gonna stick some sticky things on you?”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Why?” Suspicious was his middle name. 

“We want to listen to your heart.” Danny figured his blood pressure was sky high, not to mention the drugs and _shit_ the electric burns peppering his torso. Danny really wanted the medical professionals to listen to Steve’s heart. Dr. Pei had taken one look at Steve, and yelled for an ECG and a bunch of other stuff. The furore had only added to Steve’s distress.

Telegraphing every motion in slow motion, pinching the pad between his fingertips, Sullivan handed it to Danny. 

“Do we need to clean him up a little?” Danny asked, because Steve was covered in grime and blood and sweat. 

“Later,” Sullivan said. He touched his left shoulder, high on his own chest. “Just below the muscle.” 

Sullivan talked Danny through each placement on Steve: arms; legs, and the curve across his torso over his heart. Steve was docile under his touch, only shying when a bruise or bloody welt was brushed. There were many. 

“Sorry. Sorry.” Danny hooked up the leads that Sullivan handed over. 

“Can you tell me what happened, Commander?” Sullivan asked, as he watched the trace on the monitor begin. 

“Drugs,” Steve grated, finally answering a question. 

“Do you know which ones?” Sullivan asked, hopefully. 

Steve’s attention drifted to the corner of the cubicle where a curtain suddenly wafted following the passage of a person on the other side. 

“Steve? Any ideas?” Danny persisted, because it was likely that Steve had a good idea. He didn’t put the Navy past exposing its Navy SEALs to drugs to test their resolve or to condition them to withstand torture. “Steve? Drugs?” 

“Amobarbital?” Sullivan offered. 

A glance -- a defensive, distrustful flicker -- briefly shifted Steve’s awareness right on the doctor. 

“Possible, then,” Sullivan hedged. 

“And a cattle prod. Wo Fat’s favourite trick,” Danny said, eying that jaggy line on the screen. He didn’t know if the pattern was good or bad.

“Do you remember hitting your head?” Sullivan said. They hadn’t even managed to get a dressing on the messy wound on his temple or arm. Rivulets of blood stained the side of his face and arm. A thick dark-red clot burgeoned on his chin. 

Steve squinted at him. 

“He’s pretty confused. I don’t know what drugs,” Danny said lowly. “And he’s been beat up.” 

Steve coughed wet and nastily. 

“More water, Detective.” 

“Call me Danny,” he said, as he retrieved the half full bottle from where it had fallen on the bed. Steve startled as the bottle came into his line of sight, shifting away. “Hey, sorry. I’ll go slow.” 

Steve pushed the bottle away. 

“Commander. I would really like to listen to your lungs.” Slowly, Sullivan unlooped his stethoscope from around his neck. “That cough doesn’t sound good.” 

“Come on, Steve.” Danny shifted his ass on the edge of the gurney, and drew Steve’s bloody head into the crook of his neck. “Let the nice doc listen to your chest. He’s just going to come behind you. It’s okay, I’m here. I’ll stop him if he tries anything you don’t like.”

Very, very carefully, Sullivan edged slightly behind Steve. First warming the bell between his hands, he then carefully set it on Steve’s bowed back. Face suddenly abstracted, he listened hard. As Danny held Steve so close, a tight wheeze was evident. Sullivan shifted the stethoscope across Steve’s back, and he startled again. 

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got this,” Danny soothed, kissing the top of Steve’s sweaty, dirty head. 

Sullivan straightened, slinging the stethoscope back around his neck. He grabbed another lead, ending in a pulse-ox clothespin. 

“Detective.” He held it up for Danny to take off him. 

“Hey, Steve, give me the finger, okay?” 

Curled against Danny, Steve obeyed, and Danny popped the clip on his raised middle finger. Sullivan huffed out a laugh. The second monitor on a wheeled podium immediately started registering numbers, and they weren’t good numbers. Danny wasn’t surprised when Sullivan unfurled a mask and oxygen tube from the bank on the wall behind the gurney. 

Danny didn’t need any instructions as he accepted the mask. 

“Got something here that will help, Babe.” Still holding Steve against him like a baby bird, Danny held the mask before Steve. “Oxygen, man, you’re wheezing like a steam train.” 

Steve didn’t protest as Danny positioned the mask over his nose and mouth. The angle was all wrong to see Steve’s face; Danny kind of thought that Steve might have his eyes closed. 

“We really need blood and chem panels, Detective,” Sullivan said. “I have to take some blood. We have to find out what was given to him.” 

“I’ve got forensics processing the… torture chamber.” His choice of words made Steve freeze against him, and Danny regretted saying them. “Chin said that as soon as he’s got something, he’s gonna call.” 

Sullivan screwed up his nose. “And I need that information. But I need to know what’s happening to Commander McGarrett right now -- the drugs and how he’s reacting to the drugs, and… the beating.”

“Give him a minute, Doc,” Danny said. Steve was tracking better; he listened to instructions. 

“I’ll go get the supplies, but we do need to draw bloods and place an IV, asap. Understood? It’s not up for argument.” 

“I get it, Doc, but let’s give Steve that minute to get his feet under him.” 

“I really don’t want to give him a sedative, given the mistreatment he’s obviously had, but it’s something that we may have to consider.” Again, Sullivan glanced at the trace on the ECG. 

Danny nodded perfunctorily, accepting the words, but not liking them in the slightest. 

“It’s okay,” Danny soothed, as Sullivan left to get supplies. 

Finding that balance between essential care and need was difficult. Danny wanted Steve clean and dry and bandaged, lying comfortably in a warm bed, healing from the beating sooner rather than later. But they were in the moment where Danny simply wouldn’t let the medical professionals inflict the necessary procedures without Steve’s -- albeit reluctant -- cooperation. 

“Danny?” Steve whispered. 

“Yeah, Buddy?” 

“What’s happening?” 

“You’re at Tripler, in the Emergency Room, Steve. There’s a doc called Sullivan looking after you.” 

“I’m hurt?” 

“Banged up. A little bloody.” Danny huffed a laugh, that wasn’t in anyway humorous. One-handed, he got the elastic strapping of the oxygen mask over Steve’s head. 

“You okay?” Steve asked, querulously. 

“I’m okay.” Danny clutched him a little tighter, because it was such a _Steve_ question. 

“My head hurts. Everything hurts.” Steve coughed. 

“The docs will help. But you gotta let them help you, okay? You understand. They need to give you an IV; you’re dehydrated.” 

“No,” Steve said truculently behind his oxygen mask. 

“No, you’re not dehydrated? Because you are. Or no because you don’t want an IV? Because you are.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Steve lifted his head and peered owlishly at Danny. 

Sullivan came back, weighed down with a tray of vials in one hand and a blanket under his arm. 

“Blanket, it’s been in the warmer.” He set the tray beside Steve’s leg. “Commander, I’m going to wrap this around your shoulders. It’s nice and warm. Okay?” 

The doctor waited until Steve nodded reluctantly. Steve sagged a little more against Danny; the heat was welcome and immediately comforting. Sullivan explained everything that he was about to do, waiting until he got an infinitesimal nod. Finally, he cleaned the crook of Steve’s arm with one, then two, and a final third wipe before it was clean enough for him to insert a cannula and extract enough blood to fill multiple colour-coded vials. They were handed off through a gap in the curtains without the nurse or attendant entering. Danny mentally applauded Sullivan’s forethought. A saline IV followed in another clean patch in a sea of grimy, bloody skin. 

“Strap. No.” Steve did not like the blood pressure cuff that Sullivan wound around his bicep. 

Danny had taken off the restraints around Steve’s wrists himself. They had made a dint in the hospital plasterboard wall when Danny had flung them aside. 

“It’s okay, Steve. It’s to keep an eye on your blood pressure.” 

“You sure?” Steve checked. 

“I’m sure,” Danny said seriously. 

“I need to clean and dress the cut on his head and arm,” Sullivan said. “The head wound definitely needs stitches.” 

“I need to shift around, Steve, so the doc can look at your head.” The side of Steve’s head pillowed into his neck was the bloodied side. 

Steve whimpered as Danny shifted away. Danny closed his eyes against Steve’s pain. 

“I’m here, Babe.” Danny scurried around the bed. Steve tracked his movement worriedly. Avoiding the cardiac leads and IV, he got on Steve’s other side. 

“You’re bleeding,” Steve said.

“It’s not my blood, Steve.” Danny shifted a hip onto the thin mattress and lifted his arm, letting Steve make the decision. 

Steve arrowed in; plastering against Danny’s side. Wo Fat had brought Steve to this; disorientated and hurting, and as confused as a child. 

They were in an Army Medical Hospital, he doubted that Dr. Sullivan dealt with -- But that was uncharitable. There wasn’t any censure in Sullivan’s expression as Steve clung to Danny; he was concentrating on treating his patient. Danny was ashamed of his own thoughts. He was honoured that Steve trusted him. 

“There’s going to be a slight pinch,” Sullivan said, and Danny realised that he held a stubby hypodermic. Local anaesthetic, Danny guessed. Steve’s head was heavy against Danny’s neck, and Danny hoped that he was on the edge of sleep. 

“Doc’s going to touch your head, Steve,” Danny warned. 

“Okay, Danny,” Steve said, simply, the fight draining out of him. He winced as pinpricks dotted his forehead around the gash, and then his arm. The tattoo was ruined. 

While they waited for the anaesthetic to take effect, Sullivan set out another green-wrapped tray out of Steve’s direct line of sight. 

“Dad?” Steve whispered. 

Danny bit his bottom lip. He let out a low long breath. 

“Steve, your dad’s not here,” Danny said, measured. 

Steve’s head was suddenly a little heavier on Danny’s shoulder. He was exhausted. 

Fresh surgical gloves on, Sullivan held a saline bottle with a nozzle and a wipe, garnering Danny’s attention. 

“We’re gonna clean your head up, Steve. The doc’s okay.” Over the curve of his bloody forehead, Danny could only see the curl of Steve’s long eyelashes. 

The doctor worked deftly, gently cleaning the wound. Danny watched until Sullivan brought the threaded curved needle up, and then he looked away. Steve’s bare feet were black with dirt. The little toenail on his right foot was torn away. A tiny physical wound that would probably hurt the most and take the longest to heal.

What was going to happen? In the short term they had to deal with the pain that Wo Fat had inflicted, but the long term? Steve had been tortured again, both mentally and physically. He had thought that his dad was alive. What had Wo Fat put him through? The torture chamber had been riven direct from a nightmare. The mere minutes that the team had spent rescuing Steve had been minutes too long in Hell. But Danny had seen the remains of the heavy chair, the IV pole, and scattered tray of syringes. 

Danny’s cell phone in his pants pocket rang, and he snatched it out. Max’s scrunched, perplexed expression filled the screen. 

“Max,” Danny pounced, “what have you got for us?” 

“Are you in the presence of any medical professionals who are treating Commander McGarrett?” 

“You’re on speaker phone,” Danny said, and hit the required button. “Doc?”

Sullivan paused in his stitching. 

“While I am primarily a forensic pathologist, I took the opportunity to look at the drugs and medication that Commander McGarrett has been exposed to.” 

“Get to the point, Max; Steve’s hurting,” Danny snapped. 

“The identifiable drugs on site are atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine. I do not know the dosage. However, unfortunately, there are also three vials that are poorly and inadequately labelled. There is one drug, labelled as Ibo, which may be Ibogaine but that is unproven. Additionally, there are gas canisters, which I cannot assess at this time. I am sorry that I cannot be more help at this time. As soon as I have an update, I will call you.” 

“Does that help, Doc?” Danny said urgently. 

“It doesn’t not help,” Sullivan said cryptically. “He’s sweating and tracking -- intermittently.”

“You what?” Danny was holding Steve so he couldn’t shake the doctor. 

“I don’t want to add to the drugs that are already in his body.” Sullivan glanced once more at the ongoing ECG trace. “There may be unforeseen interactions.” 

“Danny?” Steve plucked at Danny’s shirt. “Oh? No flowers.” 

“What? Steve?” 

“I wanna go home.” He coughed again, raspy and nasty. 

“Yeah, I know.” Danny rested his cheek against Steve’s hot sweaty hair. “Let the docs help you first.” 

The waiting was interminable. Sullivan dealt with the gory head wound, covered with a pristine white bandage that made the grime all the more apparent, and moved onto the arm wound. The scrutiny that Sullivan kept giving the ECG was unnerving. Every now and again the blood pressure cuff inflated, disturbing Steve all over again, just as Danny was sure that he was about to drop off. 

“Doc, how is it going?” Danny asked. 

“I’ve put a rush on the blood and chem panels. I do not like the degree of hypotension that I’m seeing, but his ECG is… okay. We’re not looking at any evidence of damage,” Sullivan clarified reassuringly. “I’m guessing that they skirted the edge of the anticholinergic toxidrome with antagonists. I need a full set of x-rays, especially his chest. Do you know if he was drowned?” 

“What?” Danny sat up straight and Steve mewled. “Drowned?” 

“Do you know?” 

“I don’t think that he was drowned,” Danny said with rising horror, the wet floor, the buckets, the deep sink…. He twisted around so he could better see Steve’s face. “Steve? Steve?” 

Steve cracked open one eye and regarded him. 

“Steve, did Wo Fat stick your head in the sink or something?” 

“Waterboarding.” Horribly, Steve shrugged offhandedly, like it was normal, like it was to be expected. 

_Jesus._

Danny wished that he had been the one to shoot Wo Fat in the head -- twice. How were they supposed to deal with torture on top of torture on top of torture? He held Steve tightly, and Steve didn’t protest, despite the pain it had to cause a body riddled with breaks, burns and bruises. Steve was too passive, sagging under the mantling wing of Danny’s arm. Realisation came in an instant as Steve’s head flopped back revealing the vulnerable stretch of his neck. 

Danny screamed for help over the siren of the ECG alarm. 

             ~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coda to 5.07

It took a second for Steve to figure out where he was. He was curled on his side. A horizontal rail was close enough to touch. On the other side of the rail was a multi-register patient monitor lit up with enough traces and LEDs for a cockpit. The room was dark, but dark with the draw of a curtain cutting off sunlight rather than the depths of night. Steve listened carefully, not moving an inch, separating the sounds, sight and smells around him. 

The dry scent of oxygen streaming in his nostrils warred with the scent that had woken him: Old Spice and woody, reassuring warmth. Dad-smell was slowly replaced by antiseptics and an underlying stench of ill bodies despite the free-flowing oxygen forced up his nose. A hospital versus a comforting dream hug on the lanai of their home. 

Steve sucked in his bottom lip, fighting involuntary tears. 

He had never grieved for his dad. 

He had felt the pain, but he had been brave. He had stood strong and done what had needed to be done. 

The dream of his father was a torture that his nemesis couldn’t have dreamt up on the best day of his miserable life. 

There were tears rolling down his cheeks, but he was crying silently, so no one would know. 

“Steve?” 

_Danny’s voice._

Danny always knew. 

“You with me, Buddy?” A warm hand cupped his shoulder from behind. 

“I want my dad,” Steve said, and he was appalled at his inadvertent honesty. The amobarbital was evidently still in his system. 

Danny drew in a sharp breath, hissing between gritted teeth. 

“I know he’s gone,” Steve said, mostly to the damp pillow under his cheek. Danny had had to tell him that more than once during the waking nightmare. “I just want him back. _I didn’t mean to say that_. I’m sorry.” 

“Hey.” Danny shook him very lightly; it was more of a caress -- a thumb drawing back and forth on his shoulder. “You never have to apologise for missing someone.” 

Danny’s voice hitched, and Steve remembered all anew that Danny had just lost his little brother. That was a fresh pain. Dad was long gone. 

“Sorry, Danny, I didn’t mean to remind you. I should be over it,” his words didn’t make sense. 

“Hey.” Danny came around the side of the bed. Squatting, he hitched his arms on the rail, and set his chin on his folded arms. “You’re allowed to miss your dad. I don’t care if it’s a--” he swallowed hard, “--a month ago or four years ago. There isn’t a fucking grief schedule that you have to follow. And anyone that tells you otherwise is a fuckwit, and you send them to me, and I’ll set them straight. And I’ll set you straight. You’re allowed to be upset. I don’t know what happened when Wo Fat was … torturing you and filling you with drugs, but you saw your dad, didn’t you?”

“Hallucinated,” Steve said clinically, because that was the right word. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Danny said, choler rising pinkly on his cheeks, “because he was there.” 

Steve watched Danny chewing over a handful of words, working to select the best ones. 

“What did you dream, Steve?” Danny finally asked. 

Steve closed his eyes, almost wanting to lose himself in the hallucination. Everyone had been happy, successful, and most importantly, alive. 

“Steve, you with me?” 

“He was alive. You saved him from Hesse.” Steve sniffed, and swallowed a harsh cough. Dad had been alive. “He was here. I got to see him again. We had a beer on the lanai. He was proud of me. _He was proud of me_. He was glad that I was home.” 

“Steve? Steve,” Danny said softly. 

Danny was a little blurry. Steve blinked his eyes clear. 

“Steve,” Danny said again, “your dad loved you.” 

“Oh, god,” Steve managed, gutted. “Why did you say that?”

“Because it’s true. He loved you, and he was proud of you, and he missed you. And if he had got a do-over, he would have brought you and Mary back from the Mainland in a heartbeat.” Danny tapped the rail with a blunt fingernail. “I’m a dad, and I know that, and I can say that. Chin’s told you: he never missed a game, and he regretted sending you away. We’re ‘ohana; we don’t lie.” 

“‘Ohana don’t lie,” Steve latched onto the words. 

“Yes, Steve, trust that. When you’re wacked out on drugs, strained, burned and bruised. We’re ‘Ohana; we don’t lie.” 

_’We’re ‘Ohana’_.

“Yeah, Babe.” Danny cupped Steve’s cheek. 

Steve huffed out a sigh that was edged with a cough. A gob of chewy phlegm lodged in his mouth. His lungs hurt. His head hurt. His little toe throbbed.

“You up to talking with the docs? You took quite a knock. Figured you actually got your skull creased by a bullet. You slept through the CT scan, and they’re the noisiest things on the planet.” 

That was so creepily disconcerting; to lose time. 

“Here--” Danny pushed a tissue into his hand resting on the pillow, “--spit it out. Better out than in.” 

The tissue was soft against his sore lips. Steve pushed the phlegm onto the folds with the tip of his tongue. 

“Yeah,” Danny praised, and took the tissue away. 

Steve was unaccountably exhausted. He had only been awake for minutes. 

“Another nap, eh?” Danny said. 

Steve forced his eyes open. 

“Hey, hey, I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” 

Steve let sleep take him. 

_‘‘Ohana.’_

             ~*~

Danny scrubbed a hand over his scruffy jaw, fighting exhaustion. He had napped a couple of times through the long night. When Steve had passed out in the ER, the ECG blaring that ear-piercing, terrifying pitch, Danny had almost had a coronary. 

Surely, Steve had had a stroke and died or something. 

A bunch of medics had descended into the cubicle at Sullivan’s yell. Danny had been yanked aside and Steve laid flat on the mattress. There had been a lot of instructions fired back and forth, pushing of drugs as Steve ‘rapidly decompensated’. 

Later, Danny had googled the word. He let his hand drop over his heart, willing it to slow down, momentarily remembering his fear. 

When Steve had fallen unconscious, the medics had had _carte blanche_ to treat him as necessary. It was invasive and borderline cruel: remains of clothes ripped away, eyelids peeled back, torso palpitated -- but the injection jabbed painfully in the centre of his chest, in his neck, and the cooling packs tucked against his suddenly bare groin and under his armpits had worked. 

Steve had stabilised.

And Danny’s heart had started again.

They had whipped Steve away to the CT scanner to rule out head injury complications in the face of drug-blown irises that refused to respond to simple tests. 

Danny had been left hanging in the centre of an empty treatment cubicle, transfixed by the inflating and deflating blood pressure cuff lying on the floor.

Finally, Steve had been transferred to the step-down unit for around-the-clock monitoring. The drugs had to be flushed out of his system, slowly and carefully, ensuring that his heart, kidney and liver function remained stable. And his friable -- Sullivan’s term -- lungs didn’t develop a chest infection. 

He wasn’t intubated, which was a good thing because Danny always associated that with impending death. Steve actually slept, and appeared, peaceful -- for the most part. It was the sleep of the exhausted. A light, raspy breath was enough to sustain a body at rest. 

Steve mumbled under his breath, and his eyes roved under his eyelids. 

“Hey,” Danny soothed once again, “it’s okay. You’re safe.”

It was a frequently-repeated mantra. 

             ~*~

The chest infection was inevitable, and came on heavy heels. The trick, Steve knew, was stopping it from developing into something significantly more nasty. He obediently used the nebulizer and forced out chest-rattling, productive coughs despite the three cracked ribs, and a persistent post-concussion headache. 

At least he had been upgraded to a private room out of the step-down unit. He was still wired for sound and light, and hooked up to too many IVs, but the invasive foley catheter had been removed, and he was apparently now allowed, with a couple of nursing aides, or Danny, to limp to the bathroom. Or he could use the urinal ever so helpfully placed on the bedside cabinet.

The first edges of boredom tickled his senses. And he took that as a good sign. Boredom drove him to move, to run, to swim, to repair the Marquis. Despair rolled over him at the thought of his dad’s car, the car that he kept trying and failing to repair, like much in his life. 

The tears threatened anew, and Steve hated the emotionality that the witch’s drug cocktail had awoken in him. He was ill; that was why he was filled with tears. The doctors said that his metabolism was screwed from here to the Mainland. He was an adult. 

Steve scrubbed his dry cheeks with the hand that wasn’t pierced by an IV, and trapped by a pulse-ox peg. 

Visiting hours weren’t for another two long hours, although Danny would probably drop by before nine on the way to their headquarters, flashing his badge to get a visitor’s permit and permission to drop by. 

“Morning, Commander.” 

Steve rolled his head on his pillow, regarding a young aide that held the morning breakfast tray. He couldn’t remember what he had selected the night before, exhausted by the move from the step-down unit to his new room. Danny might have actually ticked the boxes on the menu sheet selecting the day’s choices. 

“Hello, Commander,” the young man continued as he set the tray on the wheeled table at the foot of the bed, “I’m Kit. I’m on shift most of today, and mornings the rest of the week. You wanna sit up?”

He was already moving to help, taking over the remote control that lifted the head of the bed. Steve let him manipulate the bed. 

“So you’ve got oatmeal, a couple of rounds of toast, and apple juice. No coffee? Do you want coffee?” 

Danny, Steve thought, had made a good choice. He would have selected the same things. Maybe he had chosen the food? He didn’t think that he had. 

“I’ll come back with the coffee pot,” Kit said cheerily, and bounced off with too much energy for zero-seven hundred hours. 

Steve pushed a teaspoon of oatmeal into his mouth and swallowed, knowing that he needed the energy and nutrients supplied by food to fuel his recovery. Oatmeal was a good choice. 

“Hello, Steve.” There was a tap on the threshold of the open door. 

Chin. Steve dredged up a smile. Chin was a good visitor, calm and quiet, just what the doctor had ordered. 

“Danny’s picking up Grace; he’s got the school run, and some Parent-Teacher conference.” 

Steve scowled. 

“Danny wasn’t concerned,” Chin said reassuringly, “I think he wanted to ask the teacher about a field trip or class. Surprisingly, for Danny, he didn’t go into detail, so I’m guessing that it wasn’t sex education.” 

Steve huffed out a laugh. 

“Here--” Chin set a large transparent container containing a rainbow of contents beside his barely touched breakfast tray, “--your favourite kombucha, carrot, beet, ginger and banana smoothie.”

A straw stood proud in the thick concoction. 

Steve abandoned his oatmeal and picked up the smoothie. The smoothie was a perfect combination of vitamins and minerals, and it didn’t hurt his throat as he worked to draw a sip down the straw. 

             ~*~

Danny glanced at his cell phone on the empty passenger seat, checking the new text, and flirting with a major road accident. 

Damn it, they had a case. 

Danny signalled and took the next exit rather than heading on to Tripler Army Medical Centre. He took the back roads, now very familiar with Honolulu after several years of car chases, and avoiding the rush hour morning traffic. 

Kidnapping of a high-profile chemical researcher -- why kidnap a visiting academic to the University of Hawaii? The first thing that came to Danny’s mind, without having the woman’s history, was that she had concocted some illegal high, but hypotheses would come with evidence. 

The researcher had a rental in the nicer part of downtown Honolulu towards Waikiki, which sent him well away from easily visiting Steve. But Danny knew that Steve would understand, and would prefer them to keep on top of any cases. However, Chin knew that he was going to see Steve after speaking to Mrs. Bigglesworth, Headmistress of Sacred Hearts, and he had still pinged him -- that was interesting. 

Danny screeched to a stop, hardly even parking, and abandoned his vehicle. The door was left swinging open. The motorbike set on the path up to the rental was Chin’s, but Kono’s car wasn’t on site. 

“So tell me,” Danny said as he barrelled into the living room through the wide open door, “this researcher isn’t five foot ten, hundred and twenty pounds, African-American, approximately thirty years of age?” 

“Well, she’s not African-American; she’s from Britain,” Chin corrected. 

“Ah,” Danny said, “hence the reason we couldn’t find her on any of our databases. Are we sure she’s the woman?” 

The woman that had administered the drugs that had brought Steve close to death, and still had him wired up to every monitor known to man, and made him cry unknowingly in his sleep. 

“Eris Danielle Trucker.” Chin held up a rust-red book with a gold embossed Coat of Arms. 

Danny was familiar British passports. 

“For real, or a pseudonym? Is she visiting the University? Giving lectures?” Danny checked. The neat sitting room didn’t look like the abode of a torturer. It looked like it should have been on the cover of ‘Better Homes’. 

“University of Manchester.” Chin had his latest Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 in his other hand. “Clearly moonlights in her spare time. But her research allows her to visit institutes in many countries. And her interest in pharmacology has led her to lead a number of expeditions in remote parts of the world.” 

Danny turned in a wide semi-circle scanning the immaculate room; perfectly positioned cushions on the pristine sofa; the rug at right angles to the pointless fireplace, and no personal items strewn about the place. 

“How long has she been visiting the University?” Danny asked. 

“Three weeks.” 

“It’s too neat,” Danny said, “unless she’s got an obsessive compulsive disorder. Even if there was a housekeeper, there would be something on the mantelpiece, a glass on the coffee table. Either she’s just staying in one room, or she had another place. Have you found her research notes?

“Or, this is evidence of an orderly mind,” Chin said. “I have her laptop and her tablet. Kono’s rushing them to Charlie Fong.” 

“So why are we still here, if we know that she’s a chemist for an international terrorist, and Charlie has her stuff, and that actually she’s already in Max’s morgue?” Danny knew that Chin would have good reasons for calling him to the scene, but he had to ask the question. 

“Malia always wrote her thoughts in a notebook, hard copy,” Chin said soberly. “Other friends like Rafe -- the ichthyologist -- have a notebook. Max has a little moleskin that he totes everywhere. I think we need to search this place and see if we can find Dr. Trucker’s notebook or notebooks.” 

“Right.” Danny turned on his heel, scanning the room anew. Chin had used Malia as an example, and Chin didn’t mention Malia that often, only when it was very important. To use Malia’s note taking as an example, when he had other examples, underscored the importance of his observation. 

“Stuff on a computer is generally more organised, for lack of a better word,” Chin continued, uncharacteristically verbose. “Hand written notes -- everything could be there.” 

“Stuff that could help Steve,” Danny said out loud. “How was he this morning?” 

The silence was very telling. 

“Chin?” Danny stopped his scanning. “Not good?” 

“Physically, he’s improving,” Chin said in his way that also said a hundred other things.

“And?” 

“Soon after I dropped by he fell asleep. There’s a lot going on Danny. He has a lot to think about. Perhaps too much.” 

“I know. I know.” Danny deflected, pulling on a pair of tight, black neoprene gloves. 

“Let’s find everything that we can to help Steve, okay?” Chin moved over to the sofa, and hauled up a sofa cushion. 

Danny was pretty sure that Eris wouldn’t have hidden anything under a cushion. 

He made a walk through the creepily tidy apartment, trying to get a handle on an unknown. Fact: she was intelligent. Fact: she liked order. Fact: she was British. They didn’t have much else. 

             ~*~

The hot waves and resultant sweat were like a tsunami. They rolled over him, leaving him lying in a sheet of perspiration that made his smock-top wet to the touch. Part of him pointed out that he would prefer to wear a simple cotton t-shirt and shorts, but the opposite part really couldn’t find the energy to care. 

Infection and drug reactions were the diagnosis-cause and he simply had to ride them out. But his viciously fluctuating temperature meant that he had to keep the saline IV, and that along with the various lines, practically tethered him to the bed. A veritable production line was necessary to help him to the bathroom. He felt like tumbled laundry in a washing machine. He was exhausted by simply existing. 

“Hey, buddy.” 

_‘Oh, hi, Danny.’_

“You look a little rough there. How are you doing?” 

Steve blinked sweat out of his eyes. _‘Winning.’_

He could say that because he was still bored. 

Danny sat with a thump in the plush chair beside Steve’s bed. Steve had spent a couple of hours in the chair in the afternoon -- sitting up and moving was always helpful to a recovering body, so the nurses said. Now he was back in the bed fighting exhaustion as the sun set. 

“This is from Grace.” Danny handed over a giant pink envelope. 

Working hard to contain any shakes, Steve wriggled his bent little finger under the leaf of the envelope and tore it open. 

“Watch out for the glitter,” Danny advised. 

_‘Noted.’_ Steve kept the envelope upright and teased out the decorated cardboard card.

Grace had put a lot of effort into the card. Steve smiled. The team was there in all there stick-figure glory. But that was uncharitable, because the figures in Grace’s latest masterpiece were demonstrably human, in proportion, or more accurately semi proportions with actual necks, and feet that didn’t turn at right angles. She was definitely getting better. There was glitter but it wouldn’t be a true Grace picture without glitter. ‘Get Well Soon, Uncle Steve’ the card proclaimed. 

_‘Tell her thanks.’_ Steve smiled at Danny

“Yeah, I know. She’s the best girl in the universe.” 

_‘That goes without saying.’_ Steve planted a hand against his ribs, before coughing into a tissue. It was strangely satisfying to hoik up a gob of thick phlegm. 

“So, Steve, dude, you want to use your words? The telepathy is a valid way of communicating, but Chin and the docs want you to use your big boy words.” 

Steve peered at Danny, who was nodding seriously. 

_‘For real?’_ Steve said, echoing Grace’s newly found nascent-teenage sarcasticness. “Shit.” 

“It’s okay, Buddy.” Danny patted his leg. 

“I….”

“Look, the crap that woman, Eris, pumped you with is screwing with your head. I just figured you just needed me to point out that you weren’t actually saying what you were thinking. Chin was worried. Dr. Sullivan apparently had a not-conversation with you. The docs commented. I knew that mostly the docs didn’t put two and two together because you know, they just tell you what’s what, and they prefer when your answers are ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It’s a bit creepy that you can spend the whole day talking or not-talking and no one actually figures out that you are talking. But speaking is good. Okay?” 

“Okay?” Steve echoed, a little confused by Danny’s ramble. 

“See, not a problem. You can talk fine, you know, if I let you get a word in edgeways. So you’ll never guess--” Danny cocked his head to the side waiting for Steve. 

“I’ll never guess what?” Steve said obediently. 

“We’ve figured out who the woman was.”

“Huh?” 

“Wo Fat’s accomplice? I said her name before: Eris. She’s a post-doctoral researcher in pharmacology, likes researching weird and wonderful drugs from all the corners of the world. Chin found Eris’ favourite notebook hidden in a fireplace, of all places, in her rental.”

“Eris?” Steve asked, perplexed. Disturbingly, all the details were coming a little too fast to process. 

“Yeah, that’s her name. Eris Trucker, late of Great Britain. I’ve given her notebook to your doctors. Chin and I figured that there would be valuable information. Max said the ibocaine,” Danny said, hauling out his own notebook from his back pocket and leafing through the pages, “means that you can’t drink grapefruit juice.” 

Arthritically, Steve leaned over and plucked the little black book from Danny’s grasp. The writing on the page in Danny’s crabby handwriting proclaimed: _Steve can’t have Earl Grey tea or grapefruit juice._ It was a cadence of care. _Metabolized by the ~~autochrom~~ cytochrome P450 complex – WTF, Max?_

“I like grapefruit juice,” Steve said petulantly. 

“Tough. You can’t have any.” 

“Ever?” 

Danny considered that. 

“Never,” he decided.

             ~*~


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coda to 5.07

“I want you to consider it, Commander McGarrett,” the voice was a little too loud and strident for a hospital floor. “I could make it an order.” 

Danny picked up his pace, holding the breakfast smoothie strategically away from his shirt despite the lid. Steve’s room was three doors down from the central desk monitoring all the patients on the ward. As Danny blew past the desk, he waved at the nurse who was starting to stand, her attention also caught by the raised voice. 

“I have a case study group, which you would fit in to given your background, and recent experiences. Parameter-wise you’re a perfect addition. I believe that you would also benefit from the treatment.” 

A tall, uniformed woman stood with her back to the doorway, pale blonde hair tucked up in a precise bun at the back of her head. Steve lay propped up by the raised head of his bed, supported by a mass of pillows. He stared stoically out from under the white bandage on his forehead, a feverish red flush vied with the now multicoloured bruising drainage down the side of his face from the bullet crease. But he wasn’t saying anything, despite the annoying provocation of the woman’s tapping foot. 

“Hello?” Danny slid into his position between Steve and the interloper. On closer inspection she had a bunch of badges in a line on her collar, and Danny guessed that she had some higher degree of seniority than Steve. But Danny wasn’t in the Navy and he didn’t care. “And you are?” 

“Dr. Caroline Fitzwilliam, Commander, United State’s Navy, MD, Psychiatrist.” She stood a little taller in her flat pumps, easily topping five foot ten. 

“Is that a Commander Commander, or Lieutenant Commander?” Danny asked wryly, because he wasn’t remotely intimidated. 

“Commander,” she said tightly. Danny had the distinct impression that she was only looking at him because he was in her line of sight, blocking her target. 

Dismissing people was so passé, but it allowed Danny to neatly categorise Dr. Caroline Fitzwilliam, Commander, USN, MD, Psychiatrist, into the appropriate hole. 

“Okay, well, yeah. Steve, Commander McGarrett, is in the _hospital_ , and I don’t figure that he’s expected to follow any orders. And he’s in the Reserves. You said that you could make it an order, but you haven’t, so you’re not going to. _So_ , I think you can leave now.” Danny pointed helpfully at the doorway. 

When she didn’t move, Danny raised an eyebrow. Steve still hadn’t said a word. Danny didn’t turn to check on him. He was happier with Steve at his back, rather than presenting his vulnerable side to Commander-Commander Fitzwilliam, with her perfectly coiffured, lacquered hair, and hard-eyed superior stare. 

“I will speak to you later, Commander McGarrett.” Fitzwilliam stalked out the cubicle, chin held high. 

“I win,” Danny said sing-song, and spun on his heel. 

The joke didn’t garner a reaction from Steve. The thought whirlwind around Steve almost made the air crackle. Danny could easily imagine little bolts of lightning and explosions of thunder. 

“Here.” Danny set the smoothie on the side table. 

The flicker in Steve’s red-rimmed eyes spoke of the many thoughts capturing and gathering his attention. He was definitely tracking, but it was distantly. Danny had a good idea what Steve was thinking, but that didn’t help. The level of inner communication was disturbing. Suddenly, Steve coughed, plucked a tissue from the box on the table over his bed, spat out the mouthful and tossed it, with unerring accuracy, into the can on the floor. Even ill, he was ridiculously athletic. 

Dr. Caroline Fitzwilliam, Psychiatrist, unfortunately had good reason for her visit. Steve wasn’t himself, but most telling was that he wasn’t even pretending -- either to himself, to his doctors, or his ‘ohana. 

“So that wo-lady was a little too--” Danny sketched narrowness between his palms, “--but maybe she had a point?” 

Steve shifted painfully against his pillows. 

“Talking to someone professional…” Danny continued. “You know that you can talk to me about anything, but a professional is trained?” 

Silence. 

Danny had said jokingly many times that Steve needed professional help, but never had it been so apparent. 

“Steve,” Danny began, trying to put his words in order, “Dr. Sullivan said about your metabolism….” 

The fact that he stopped talking and then didn’t fill the immediate silence actually garnered Steve’s attention. Danny bit his tongue, thinking hard. 

_‘Metabolism?’_ Steve echoed. 

“You are your metabolism thingy.” Danny drew a giant circle in the air. 

“Metabolism thingy,” Steve mocked out loud. 

“I deliberately didn’t take biochemistry at my college.” Danny mentally blocked the horrors of High School chemistry. “I’m betting that you did. You are you. Max also thinks that the cocktail of shit she injected you with could, like, affect everything. If you drink lots of alcohol you can get depressed,” Danny continued. “Alcohol is a chemical. I know that I drank a lot when… Oh boy, you know, when Rachel sued for divorce. Matty.” 

Danny had told Steve that Matty had been at his side when he had drank himself into a stupor every night in the Motel down the street from his family home in Jersey. 

“Fuck knows what the atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine and all the other stuff are doing to you.” Danny remembered something that he had read once. “It’s chemicals in your brain. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” 

_The crying thing_ went unsaid. The fact that Steve was being uncommonly passive. 

Steve let out a deep sigh. 

“Fact: you’re ill.” Danny went in at the deep end with an almighty splash. “You need treatment -- that’s drugs and psycho-therapy.”

The imaginary telepathy communication switched off as if it had never existed. It actually made a shiver walk up Danny’s back. Steve could have been a stranger lying propped up on the hospital bed regarding Danny down his long nose. He was controlling himself admirably, the heart rate monitor was recording a steady sixty beats, but his oxygen rate was falling because he was holding his breath. 

Danny was a detective. 

“Yeah, yeah, not that Doctor-Psychiatrist person. Clearly, she should have spoken to Dr. Sullivan or Dr. Pei. She’s not coming back, and you’re not going in her case-study group, even if you fit ‘all the parameters’.” Over Danny’s dead body was Commander Dr. Caroline Fitzwilliam coming back with all her creepily prurient, ill-concealed interest in Steve as a test subject. 

Steve was still viewing him down his long, fine nose as if viewing excrement. But since said nose was bright red because of repeated nose blowing -- despite the soft-balm tissues that Danny had bought and Steve had thanked him for -- Danny continued, because if he didn’t no one would, except Chin, Mary, Kono, and possibly Grover. 

The heart rate was increasing because Steve was still holding his breath. He couldn’t do it for much longer. One, the monitor was going to start pinging at the nurses at the station and a cavalcade would run in, and, two, the inevitable cough, was well inevitable. 

Danny plucked a tissue from the Kleenex box and held it out for Steve. 

Steve snatched it from Danny’s hand as a rib-crackling cough racked his body. Leaning to the side, hand plastered over his sore ribs, Steve hoiked out a golf ball of green, and then flopped back on his pillows, tissue clenched in his hand. 

“Nice one,” Danny observed. “Feel better?” 

Steve nodded, insufficient air to fuel any words, but there was a satisfied gleam in his eyes. Giving him a moment, Danny switched out the contents in the pitcher on the table for fresh water, and poured a glass full. Steve had his hand already stretched out for the glass, when Danny turned. 

“Thanks,” he grated, when he had wet his mouth. 

“So….” Danny said re-opening the conversation because he wasn’t going to let it go. 

“Look, Danny,” Steve said between wheezes, “it’s the drugs. They’re almost flushed out of my system.” He lifted his arm. “The antibiotics are kicking in. Doctors are thinking I’ll be released in forty-eight hours.”

_I’ll be magically better_ , went unspoken. He was lying badly, to himself and to Danny. 

Danny dropped into the high-backed armchair beside Steve’s bed. 

“Wrong,” Danny said. 

Steve dredged up a smile. “I will be released in forty-eight hours.” 

“Steve.” Danny had words, lots of words, but for once he horded them to spend like diamonds. “Can you make me a promise?” 

Face scrunched, perplexed, Steve shifted over onto one hip to better see him.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Grace would ask you to cross your heart, though.” Danny waited, because if Steve promised, he would fulfil the promise. The manipulation was tangible; Steve was simply not firing on all cylinders. Under normal circumstances you could not extract an open promise from the man. He was such a barracks lawyer. Danny guessed that Steve had learned that annoying character trait in the Navy.

But his ‘ohana was asking. 

He might be feeling like parboiled shit, but Steve wasn’t stupid. 

“I promise to think about it,” Steve said, and crossed his heart. 

             ~*~

Release came with a host of instructions, and a white paper bag filled with prescriptions. Steve viewed the blue inhaler and the orange inhaler with something close to disgust. He would use them, but Dad had never approved of him using inhalers when he was a little kid, considering them as giving in. The preventative medicine had to be used several times daily to reduce the inflammation triggered by the near-actual drowning. 

Growing out of asthma had been the best thing on the planet. A growth spurt and no longer being a snotty, wheezy mess had allowed him to love the sports that he had craved. 

The steroids, inhaled and tablets, would theoretically control the inflammation, knock the asthma on its head, and he would be himself again. The pneumonia hadn’t caused the asthma, _per se_ , Dr. Sullivan had explained. Annoyingly -- inflammation provided his body old ground to travel. 

He could see his dad’s disappointed expression in his mind’s eye. Steve stuffed the flixotide deep into the bag. Breathing exercises were, to Dad’s mind, the way to control asthma, not medication. 

“You ready?” Danny waggled the wheelchair back and forth, making the wheels squeak. 

Steve levered off the bed, and dropped into the chair, knowing that it was quicker and easier not to rail against the obligatory use of the wheelchair to exit the premises. He wanted to go home. He wanted a shower. He wanted to lie on his lanai and bake the residual germs from his bones. 

“Okay?” Danny leaned over him, and patted his shoulder. 

“Onwards.” Steve pointed to the door of his room. 

Danny snorted and pushed him towards freedom. They were waved off by the nurses and aids. Cheery faces, and the lady who was a little too thorough when he helped him, were sad (but pleased) to see him go. Their interest and consideration was flattering, but sometimes you needed to be left alone, and not dissected mind, body and soul into a mere outward façade. 

“Smoothdog,” Danny chuckled. 

“Good luck, Kit.” Steve lifted his hand. 

“Thank you, Commander.” Kit’s bright, enthusiastic smile hadn’t ebbed once throughout Steve’s stay. The kid was saving up for college and becoming a ‘real’ nurse, and had shared all his plans. 

Corridor, elevator, corridor, foyer, glass double doors automatically swooshing open, and a cool, air-conditioned world gave way to the brush of warm, blossom rich air. A knot uncoiled. 

Safe. 

His Silverado was parked in the pick up bay right next to the doors. A police badge was prominently displayed on the dash. 

“Hey, I haven’t been parked very long,” Danny said, reading his mind, as they angled towards escape. 

Steve contemplated the driver’s side, but couldn’t be bothered to face the resultant fight. Danny was angling to the passenger’s seat. Thankfully, Danny didn’t fidget to help him into the cab, although he stood close, as Steve clambered inside. 

“I’ll be back,” Danny cackled, Terminator-esque, and moved off to return the wheelchair to the ranks by the doors. 

He had another long week of sick leave, before seeing the doctors to be assessed as to when he could return to work. Danny bounced into the driver’s seat. 

“Seatbelt,” Danny rebuked, as he turned the key in the ignition. 

Steve watched the world go by, quiet as they passed through Tripler security, and Danny handed over his pass. They immediately hit the busy roads. Steve wound down the window and let the breeze ruffle his hair. Danny filled the Silverado with his entertaining chatter, moving aimlessly from topic to topic, but always coming back to the heart of his verbal tornado: Grace. 

Piikoi Street came too soon. Steve was enjoying the mindless drone of driving. 

“Home sweet home,” Danny said sing-song, as they pulled to a stop on the drive in front of the garage. 

Steve popped the door, drew in a careful shallow breath, and stepped out. The house was familiar. It was home. He took in the sea air. Home, his family, home. They had moved here when Mary had been born, Mom and Dad figuring that they needed more space. Steve remembered being really confused -- thinking that you bought a house and the baby came with…?

“Got fresh fruit and veggies from that organic place you like,” Danny supplied, sauntering towards the flowered archway. “Come on.” 

Mom, CIA Mom, had landscaped the gardens. A host of vibrant flower beds and trailing trellises that Dad had worked to look after post her supposed death. Quickly, Dad had realised that his thumb was black, and he had handed over the chore to Steve. Dad had hired a gardener when he had shipped Steve and Mary off to the Mainland. Steve had kept the woman on after his father’s…. 

Home. 

“Hey, Steve, you coming?” 

“Sure, yeah.” Steve’s feet wouldn’t move. The arch of the flowered gateway was one that he could not pass. 

“Steve.” 

Sweat pooled at the base of Steve’s spine, slick and cold. He concentrated on keeping his breathing even, not wanting to trigger a coughing fit. The house loomed, dark at the edges as if a veil was draping over the eaves. 

“Hey. Hey. I got you.” 

Danny was warm at his side, crouching. Crouching? Steve was on his knees on the hard driveway. 

“Just sit. Lower your head. Breathe.” Danny’s hand was warm on the back of his neck. “You wanna tell me what’s going on? You feeling sick?” 

Steve splayed his fingers over the rough driveway. Pebbles and grit dug into his palms. Cloying dust filled his nose. His breathing was shot, he couldn’t draw in enough breath for the things he needed to do. But he didn’t know what to do? His lungs were raw. The coughing was inevitable. He couldn’t get the air out. Air whooped in his chest, wheezing and coughing. The tightness in his lungs was like a fist. 

“Steve. Steve, calm. I got something.” Danny held the blue rescue inhaler before his nose. 

Steve didn’t have the air to formulate a refusal as Danny stuck the inhaler in his mouth. 

“I’m going to press down on the count of three. Try to inhale.” 

Coughing and wheezing, air whipped around the sides of the hard plastic. 

“-- three.” 

The aerosol spray gushed, and most of it just back fired straight out of his mouth without being inhaled. 

“Babe. Babe.” Danny rubbed between his shoulder blades. “Cough out, and hold it. Just for a second. Yes. I’m going to press. Now.” 

Steve managed to get the tiniest inhale of the medicine. 

“Good,” Danny encouraged. “And again.” 

They were partners; their timing was a matter of professionalism and practice. He got another hit of the best drug known to man: albuterol. 

“Steve?” Danny was a long reassuring line of warmth along his side. 

This was ridiculous, he knew, ridiculous. He ran hot with shame. The coughing had triggered the attack because of his friable lungs, but the panic was all his own. 

His house. Dad’s house. 

Steve settled back on his heels willing the medicine to work fast. The urge to cough and cough hovered on the edge of everything, but the tightness that threatened to smother him was easing. He took the inhaler from Danny’s hand, rammed it between his lips and took a second belt. 

Magic. He hated it just a little bit.

“Babe.” Danny rubbed a large, soothing circle over Steve’s back from nape to the dint in his spine. “You ready to try standing up?” 

Steve was not ready, so he determinably got his feet under him, and stood. Danny was a bulwark. Standing as tall as he could, Steve rolled his shoulder blades back and down, working to expand his lungs. The flowered trellis loomed large before them. His feet were rooted. 

Danny’s gaze darted between Steve and the gateway, and back. 

“Babe,” he said, and blew out a slow, measured breath. “You wanna come stay at mine? There’s more than enough room.” 

Fuck, Danny was as perceptive as radar. 

“I--” was all that Steve could manage. He was a Navy SEAL; he would not let entering his own home defeat him. 

Teeth gritted, he moved his foot, and then the next. Danny was there, shoring him up like a pit prop. 

Chuffing each and every breath harshly, Steve made it, step after step to the front. 

“You don’t normally use your front door, do you,” Danny said lightly. 

“Lanai,” Steve grated. “You got my keys?” 

“Oh, yes!” Under Steve’s arm across his shoulders, Danny rooted around in his pocket, pulling out the spare key. 

“Did you find my stuff?” Steve asked. His wallet, Swiss army knife, pocket first aid kit, garrotte, and even his shoes. “Gun?”

“Yeah, stuck them in your bedside drawer.” 

Danny pushed the front door open, one handed, as he held Steve up. And then he stood, letting Steve make the decision. 

Steve stepped away from Danny and walked directly to the office area in the dining room. 

“Steve?” Danny protested as he shadowed him, and Steve loved him all the more. 

He hadn’t become the man that he was by not facing his fears. There was not a single sign of blood on the floor before him. Steve had replaced and varnished the wood flooring himself. Painting the wall had obliterated any and all blood splatters. A distant part of him actually wanted the tangible, concrete evidence for his confused senses. He had made the decision not to view the crime scene photos -- that was macabre and masochistic, and he was neither. But he had scrutinised the scene after the murder…. 

“Why are you smiling at me?” Danny asked, perplexed and sounding more than a little worried. Steve realised that he had lost a moment, or perhaps more than a moment. 

“Just remembering the first time that we met,” Steve said, and thought on the losses that had led to his friendship with his best friend, Danny Williams. 

“Okay.” Danny drew out all the vowels. “You’re looking pretty pale there, buddy, you want to lie down?” 

Danny was his evidence. 

“You’re scaring me, Babe.” 

Steve swallowed hard, and nodded. He turned from the non-scene. Three steps and he was fumbling with the door latch leading to the lanai, and to their deck chairs beyond. 

“I meant upstairs in your bed.”

“I’ve had enough of lying in beds. I want the sea.” The doors opened. 

“You want the sea,” Danny harped, and dogged his heels. “Okay, only for an hour or so. No longer. And you have to promise to drink lots of water. And I’m going to make a sandwich. Okay?” 

The sand was uneven underfoot, but Steve had his goal, nothing was going to stop him reaching those chairs. He circled around the first chair on the strandline, and flopped into his chair with a sign of relief. Through the veil of his eyelashes, he regarded Danny standing over him. 

“Well. Hmmm.” Danny had his hands on his hips. “Lunch, okay? You’re eating.” 

“Yes, Danno.” 

“Hmmm.” 

“Love you,” Steve mumbled, feeling sleep like the inexorable waves of the ocean sweeping over him. 

“Love you too.” Danny stalked off, chest puffed out. 

Who couldn’t love Danny Williams? 

             ~*~

Danny clattered through the kitchen, trying to figure out what to cook for someone who was ill in a tropical hell hole. In New Jersey homemade chicken soup would be the answer, but was it too hot for delicious thick and creamy chicken chowder with corn? Danny really wanted to make soup. He had even bought the ingredients on autopilot. Growling under his breath he hauled out the potatoes and corn from the refrigerator. 

Steve had had a panic attack. He had also lost time, not once but twice, wrapped in thoughts that he refused to verbalise. 

Danny took visceral pleasure in shucking the leaves from the cob, setting the threads aside to make some kind of wacky tea that Steve liked. 

Steve was locked in his head, chewing on the hallucinations. He hadn’t mentioned anything about the torture, even in his sleep, he was that focused on his Dad. The torture was the metaphorical elephant in the room that was totally ignored. 

Stabbity stabbity stab, Danny chopped the potatoes roughly. This was going to be the best chicken soup known to man or Grandma Williams. 

Steve hadn’t mentioned Doris or Wo Fat. There was too much going on. Simply put, there were too many trapdoors in Steve’s fluffy head. The question was which one was Steve going to fall down. 

Danny prepared to eviscerate the chicken, as he wondered how he was going to tell Steve that he could not go back to work until he had seen a therapist. 

             ~*~

Steve slept through Danny hauling out a moth-eaten beach umbrella from the garage and setting it over him. A snuffing snore greeted Danny every time he checked on Steve as the soup simmered its way to perfection. Steve slept through Danny ferrying out what Grace would have called a picnic, and setting it on the small table between their chairs. 

It was tempting to get a beer, but Danny defaulted to condensation-sweating bottles of water. 

“Wakey, wakey, Babe,” Danny cajoled. It was funny how Steve slept through all the preparations, half curled on the white chair, but woke at a simple request. 

“Uh?” Steve smacked his lips. “D--?”

“Lunch. Chicken soup, good for what ails you, as my Grandma would say.” 

Steve shuffled and stretched, pushing his hands out like a kitten kneading a blanket. 

It wasn’t in any way cute. 

Steve yawned widely, treating Danny to the curl of his tongue and dangling epiglottis. It was lucky that Danny was a dad, and had faced much worse.   
Danny waited until there was the light of awareness in Steve’s eyes, before leaning over so Steve could easily take the tray that he held. 

“Smells great.” Steve sniffed appreciatively, as he set the tray on his lap. 

“Grandma’s finest.”

“Where did the beach umbrella come from?” Steve gazed up at a dangling cobweb that Danny had missed. 

“Garage.” Danny sat down in his chair, and grabbed his bowl of soup from the table. 

“Huh.” Steve dug into the soup, and hummed appreciatively after the first mouthful. “Ssss’good.” 

“Yup,” Danny agreed, because it was, rich and creamy but without any added cream to muck up a snotty person’s lungs. The trick was the correct choice of potatoes and a good two hours of slow simmering. 

“Don’t forget your antibiotics,” Danny said, because he was a dad. 

Without speaking, Steve reached for the bottle that Danny had placed on his tray, and took one of the capsules. He washed it down with a mouthful of water, and then continued his satisfied slurping. 

It was good soup, one of his better concoctions, tomorrow after maturing it would be even more tasty. Danny ate and contemplated, life, the universe, and the wheezy rasp of Steve’s breathing. 

“It’s good to be home,” Steve said, and then suddenly looked pensive. 

“Steve.” Danny set his spoon down beside his bowl. 

“Don’t, Danny,” Steve said. 

“Steve,” Danny said, and let him fill in all the blanks. 

“What?” Steve said eventually, when the silence became too much for him. Danny had him well trained. 

“I’m worried about you,” Danny said simply. “You have to talk to someone.” 

Steve was a statue as he worked through the whys and wherefores of that simple statement. The astoundingly awful fact was that life taught them, men and women, that seeking help was a weakness. Chin had kept silent that he was talking to someone about his wife’s murder. Mandated counselling was a requirement in the armed services and in the police services. Danny knew his own tricks when he faced a counsellor after a shooting so that he could get signed off. He was well aware of Steve’s skill at deflection -- charm, humour and affection. 

“Not yet, no,” Steve said. “I wanna get healthy. I can’t talk to someone now.” 

Danny read resolution in Steve’s eyes. What Danny couldn’t remember was if it was more helpful to go to a therapist when the hurt was fresh? He racked his memory, knowing his own tendency not to listen during obligatory P.D. mental health seminars. Steve’s hurts were deep and many….

“You okay, Danny?” Steve interrupted Danny’s meandering. 

Danny had to love the sudden concern in his partner’s eyes, when the concern was better placed on Steve’s rounded shoulders. 

“So does that mean that you will go?” Danny asked.

“When I’m better.” 

“So when you can run five miles?” Danny persisted, because Steve needed metrics, otherwise better would be another hurdle, another excuse. Although, Steve’s drive to get _physically_ better was innate. 

“Five miles is good,” Steve said, nodding.

“Okay,” Danny took that as a promise, and a trust. 

             ~*~

Part of Steve wanted to fall back into bed. The other louder, more insistent, part told him to move. The frisson under his skin made his joints ache. Each motion was practiced; bedroom-stored bug-out bag; a second holdall with fresh underwear, cargo shorts and t-shirts; toiletries; and a pair of hiking shoes. 

Reluctantly, he packed his painkillers, antibiotics and damnable inhalers. 

Muffling a cough, he crept down the staircase, avoiding the creaky penultimate step. The blond-hair-tuft atop the lump of blankets on the sofa didn’t move as Steve slipped into the kitchen. 

Steve left the house via the mud room, grabbing a six pack of sports drinks and trail mix en route. 

Danny was probably going to kill him. 

             ~*~

_Tbc_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coda to 5.07

“Thanks,” Steve croaked, and handed over the cab fare with a good tip. 

Bug-out bag over his shoulder, and his second, carefully packed bag in his hand, Steve headed up the sidewalk at a slow and measured pace, breathing carefully. His ribs protested the motion, and the residual headache tapped a little more heavily. 

It was a cloudless night, and the air wasn’t too humid. Most importantly there were no walls pressing down on him. Pausing for a breath under the darkness of an ornamental tree hanging over a chain-link fence, he popped the battery out of his cell phone. He took stock as he fiddled with the phone, and set up his burner phone, pretending to no one but himself that he didn’t need to sit for a moment. The sports drinks in his holdall were heavy, but he couldn’t bring himself to discard them. Water was always the most valuable asset. The memory of dehydration was a familiar one. 

_‘You have to stay hydrated.’_

He mapped out routes and options as somewhere a bell chimed two o’clock. Under the cover of the tree, he waited until there were no cars in sight, and then he jay-walked across the road avoiding crosswalks and their traffic control cameras. 

The park directly ahead of him was quiet in the depths of night. Steve walked carefully, poised, listening for anything and anyone. He skirted along the edge of a playing field, checking the darker shadows of the occasional tree. Only the breath of wind made the trees rustle. Across the plane of the playing field the noise of traffic was muffled. 

Unaccountably tired, he stumbled. He had chosen this route, out of many possibilities, because it was flat, and a space with a dearth of surveillance cameras. 

“Ridiculous,” he chided himself. A simple three hundred yard walk seemed almost impossible. He shook his head, and focussed on the destination. 

“It’s only a chest infection,” Steve berated himself. 

He had to revise his plans, because whether he liked it or not, and he didn’t like it, option one was not an option. 

The decision was made, and on reflection, it was probably the best decision. 

Danny would probably disagree -- on principle.

             ~*~

“I’m going to kill him!” Danny shook Steve’s note in Chin’s face. 

Phlegmatically, Chin didn’t react. Danny would have ripped the spleen out of anyone that had done that to him. 

Chin reached over the computer table and plucked the note from Danny’s fingers. 

“‘Sorry, Danno’,” Chin read out loud, “‘I just need some space’.” 

“I would have left him alone in the house! Have you heard his cough?” Danny asked unnecessarily. “He’s ill.” 

“So we find him,” Chin said, setting the scrap of paper aside, and brushing his fingertips over the computer interface. A GPS map leaped onto one of the standing monitors. 

“What?” Danny stopped gesticulating; somehow he had expected Chin to advise giving Steve his ‘space’. 

“He’s an idiot,” Chin said uncompromisingly. “He’s not thinking straight. The last thing that he needs is ‘space’ to focus on all his inward thoughts. We’re ‘ohana; he needs us.” 

             ~*~

The sun was warm on the back of Steve’s neck. He had never thought that he would use this bolthole. The card that he had just played had been one that he had planned on holding onto for many, many years. 

Steve coughed into his fist. He had taken his antibiotics to schedule, and also taken his last dose of Prednisolone with something close to relief. 

A bird called, and Steve carefully scanned the immediate environment: trees, dense bushes, and the reed-like stand in the lagoon, that once he had enough energy, he was going to cut down. A mottled tan and dark brown duck shuffled out from under a bush, skidded down the bank into the water with a splash. Steve continued to watch, but it was definitely the only movement. 

“That’s a Hawaiian duck, D--” Steve began, but Danny wasn’t sitting beside him. 

             ~*~

Danny was so worried he could barely think straight. He was also angry enough that he was genuinely fighting the impulse to punch the idiot in the jaw when he caught up with him. 

What on earth went on in that stupid head that he thought that going AWOL was a good idea? He wasn’t even twenty-four hours out of the hospital. But Danny knew the reason: pain, trauma, and confusion. 

They had to find Steve. 

“I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him dead, and then resurrect his ass,” Danny growled at the computer tablet, mentally cajoling it to display Steve’s whereabouts, “and kill him all over again.” 

“Overkill, brah.” Kono came out of her office with an iPad tablet held prominently. 

“You got something?” Danny asked, reading the gleam in her eye. 

Steve hadn’t taken his giant, over compensating truck, choosing to call for a cab from the corner of Piikoi Street and Kamaile Street. Of course, Steve had switched cabs, choosing a drop off near the Bishop Museum. He had then walked into a security camera dead zone before (probably) picking up a second cab. The fact that Steve had a map of the combined Naval Security, road traffic control, and individual camera coverage of Honolulu and could select the best, unobserved route out was simply typical of the man. Kono had been contacting every cab company in the area and asking staff if they remembered picking up a coughing, ill man in the vicinity of the museum. Luckily, it was not as if Lieutenant Commander McGarrett of 5-0 wasn’t memorable, or well-known. 

Danny was very, very, very annoyed. 

“He was picked up by a ‘Pearl Harbour Taxi’ just outside of Kamehameha Park. The fare was to Kāne’ohe Bay.”

“Where?” Danny asked automatically. 

“East, windward side of the island. The taxi driver decided to take a break after dropping him off by the Windward Mall. Steve waited at the same coffee shop before being picked up by a roadster.” Kono set her pad on the computer table, and worked her abracadabra. A grainy CTV image of a tall figure -- unmistakably Steve -- getting into the passenger side of a sleek, black BMW played on the large screen. The fact that Steve had missed the taxi driver hanging about said a lot about his state of mind. 

“That’s different.” Danny drummed his fingers on the edge of the table. “Do we know who that is?” 

Kono smiled. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Danny said, smiling back at her. 

             ~*~

“So,” Kono said, as she lay on her stomach overlooking the verdant glade with its tinkling waterfall, crystal blue lagoon, and waterside Japanese-style cabin, “we going to beard the lion in its den?” 

Danny couldn’t fault Steve’s choice of hideaway. The so-called secret-escape exclusive resort -- Mea Huna -- was true to its name, but usually the choice of movie stars and billionaires, rather than depressed SEALs. 

“You _do_ know that he knows that we’re out here?” Chin pointed out, as he passed his binoculars over Kono’s prone form so that Danny could have a better look. 

Danny didn’t answer as he propped himself up on his elbows and set the binoculars to his eyes. The landscape below resolved into view with perfectly sharp apochromatic quality, thanks to the governor’s funding, fuelled by Steve’s whining. 

They had only found Steve because they knew Steve, something that Danny was going to use during the fight that was brewing on the horizon. The uninformed would have guessed that he would have been bivouacing in the Ewa Forest Reserve. The cough meant that that idea was insanity, which possibly would have meant that it was a _Steve-appropriate-idea_ , but Steve wasn’t stupid. He needed to be somewhere that catered for the tired, exhausted and ill, and provided excellent security and sanctuary. He had been picked up by Aupolei Lee, owner of Mea Luna, but instead of moving on, he had stayed on at the resort. 

One of the Mea Huna grottos was somewhere that Danny would like to vacation when he won the lottery. 

“So are we all going down there, or just Danny?” Kono asked getting to the heart of the matter. “There will be less yelling if we all go. You know, instead of Danny going on his own.” 

Danny poked her in the side, making her tickle-wriggle away from his fingers. 

“Seriously--” Chin stood up, “--he knows we’re all here.” 

Danny scrambled after Chin, as the older man set off down the switchback path down to the lagoon. Each individual step was a round, textured, pavement slab. At the bottom, the steps were damp with the spray from the waterfall. To cross the lagoon to the cabin they had to jump from stepping stone to stepping stone in single file. 

“SEALs.” Danny shook his head. 

Steve was waiting for them on the veranda, cup of tea in his hand. 

“You look awful,” Danny greeted him. The bruising on the side of his face was a spectacular rainbow of dark purples, tinged with greens and yellows at the edges, and he was wraith pale. The skin on either side of his long nose under his eyes was pinched and drawn, a clear Steve-sign that he was stressed and ill. 

“Good to see you too, Danno.” Steve smiled. 

“Don’t you start!” Danny had his finger up. “I was going to punch you. Punch you in the head. But you look like shit.” 

“Violence never solves anything,” Chin said, as he toed his shoes off, pushing them into a cabinet against the wall. He swapped them for a pair of slippers. Kono also slipped off her shoes before stepping onto the wooden deck. 

“Shoes, Danno,” Steve rasped. 

Danny looked at Steve’s bare feet, with his battered little toe and its tiny wrapped band-aid. 

“I hate you,” Danny said, all his ire draining away, leaving exhaustion in its wake. 

“I love you too.” Steve nodded towards the interior. “There’s tea ready.” 

Danny kicked his shoes violently into the cabinet, and padded stripy sock-footed across the wooden floor, leaving sweaty footprints. Inside, there was a large open plan room, bounded by flimsy looking paper and wood walls and sliding doors. A central hearth complete with kettle hanging over the fire dominated the room. 

“Boss.” Kono flung her arms, gently, around Steve. “You worried us.” 

“Sorry.” Steve closed his eyes as he folded her in, and simply breathed. 

Chin settled for a comradely pat on his shoulder, letting them have their moment. Danny rocked from foot to foot. Finally, Steve opened his eyes, and then released Kono. 

“Nice place,” Chin said. “Traditional.” 

“Yeah, I like it,” Steve said. 

Danny viewed the cushions on the floor by the hearth with something close to distaste, and then dropped down onto the plumpest one. 

“I’ll serve.” Cloth in hand, Chin took the kettle hanging over the fire and poured hot water into a ceramic teapot. 

They sat around the hearth: north, south, east and west. 

“Why here, Boss? It’s lovely.”

It was built of clean lines. The one storey building with its red ceramic tile roof was austere and uncluttered. It was a hundred million miles different to the McGarrett Mausoleum. 

“Ah,” Danny said. 

Steve cocked his head to the side. 

Danny was too tired to fight. Waking up to find that Steve had absconded had set the ‘ohana on a mad chase to find him, Grover being left behind to look after the store. It had been a long day and night of frantic looking stoked by Steve’s stupid little note. That was a serious, broken promise. He had promised to always talk to Danny before running. 

“It’s late,” Chin interrupted Danny’s mental meanderings, “can we stay?” 

Gnawing on his chapped bottom lip, Steve nodded. 

             ~*~

“Danny? Danny? Danny?” 

Danny hadn’t expected to be able to sleep on the thick shiki futon on the tatami mat flooring. But Steve’s quiet, insistent whispering penetrated his sleeping comfort in much the same way that Grace’s quiet ‘Danno?’ would. 

“Steve?” Danny blinked sleep out of his eyes. He lifted his head. “You okay?” 

“I’m sorry, Danny,” Steve said quietly. “I didn’t mean to leave. I just did. I knew that I was leaving. But I couldn’t stop. If I hadn’t I would have…. I had to move. You have to talk to me. You can’t _not_ talk to me.” 

“Babe.” Danny levered up on one elbow. Steve’s eyes were bright in the low light from the central, banked fire. Chin and Kono slept undisturbed on the other side of the hearth. “Outside? Okay?”

Steve nodded fervently. He shuffled away. The sliding door creaked a little as he opened it a fraction and slithered through the gap. Danny gathered up his kakebuton comforter and waddled after his friend. 

Steve sat on the Japanese version of a lanai, feet hanging over the edge of the wooden deck. The lagoon beyond reflected the starlit night in the quiet little haven that Steve had escaped to. Danny plonked down next to Steve, and folded an edge of the thick comforter over his shoulders. 

“You’re an idiot,” Danny began, after ensuring that Steve was warmly wrapped. “You can’t ever do this again, you hear?” 

“Yes, Danno.” 

“I’m not giving you an easy way out. You know what this was, this was flight. It was a completely, totally, and stupid… fear response!” Danny growled lowly, not wanting to disturb Chin and Kono. “Do you even know why you ran?”

Steve tried to shift away from under the comforter, but Danny just held on, enveloping him further in its silk folds. 

Mutely, Steve shook his head. 

“Guess,” Danny said shortly. 

Steve let out a heavy sigh. He grabbed a corner of the quilt and tucked it under his chin as he gazed outwards. He was a line of knobbly bones and elbows that fitted against Danny’s side like a complicated key in a lock. 

“I don’t know, Danny,” he said finally. “The walls were closing in on me. I ran. I should have taken you with me.” 

Danny poked him in the side because that went without saying. 

“I said you could have stayed at mine,” Danny said. “I have a nice house. There’s even a spare room. Grace wouldn’t have minded. Because that’s what family -- ‘ohana -- does.” 

“Yes, Danny.” Steve hung his head.

“But you ran away from your home. You ran away from your family. You ran away from the people who love you. You get that? You worried us, because you’re wrapped up in your head, your pain, every shit thing that’s been done to you and clearly you’re not thinking. You ran, but you didn’t run far. You knew that we’d come after you. You are an idiot. But I get it. You’ve got to figure it all out, because no matter how far you run -- we’ll find you.”

Danny pulled Steve in closer, and planted a kiss up against his hairline above the stitches on his forehead. 

“You’re an idiot, but you’re our idiot.”

“Thanks, Danny,” Steve huffed, “you’re all heart.”

“But it’s time to stop running, Steven.”

Steve sighed deeply, his breath caught in a cough and he jerked, muffling the noise with the corner of the quilt. 

“Awesome, germs on my quilt.” Danny rubbed carefully between Steve’s shoulder blades. “You been taking your antibiotics? Steroids?” 

“I’ve only been gone just over a day,” Steve rasped, and immediately froze, glancing at Danny out of the corner of his eye. “Sorry, Danno.” 

Steve oozed guilt and need. Danny could practically taste it. Part of Danny was glad that Steve had run so that they could chase after him, and find his haven. Actions spoke louder to Steve than words on any given day. His ‘ohana had followed, and would follow him to the ends of the Earth. 

“I’m revoking the five miles plan. You need to see a doctor, and sooner rather than later. Okay?” 

The reflected starlight in Steve’s eyes could have been mistaken for tears. Slowly, he shook his head. Danny didn’t say that Steve had promised to think about it -- that was now redundant. It was clear that Steve didn’t want to see a therapist or a psychologist, or any sort of _–ist_. But he had to talk to someone. 

“I don’t want to,” Steve said, train wreck decimation in his voice. 

Steve had to talk to someone -- Danny was happy to listen-- but he couldn’t prescribe medicines or be objective. His own feelings were twisted enough to give him heartburn. 

The telepathy thing was still working. 

“Will you,” Steve said very, very quietly, “come with?” 

“Sure, Buddy--” Danny hugged Steve in against his side, “--every step of the way.” 

_**Fin** _


End file.
